


in some sad way i already know

by Evedawalrus



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: And really, M/M, Old Married Couple, Stargazing, isn't that what tfp is all about, the kids definitely use ratchet's computer to play minecraft, they're in love and they're old and sad and i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24815821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evedawalrus/pseuds/Evedawalrus
Summary: Both Ratchet and Optimus miss home, but they show it in different ways. They still have each other.
Relationships: Optimus Prime/Ratchet
Comments: 8
Kudos: 73





	in some sad way i already know

**Author's Note:**

> THAT'S RIGHT I'M BACK TO MY ROOTS
> 
> this was a commission fic for a friend that i forgot to post – thank you again wrathe!!!! >:3

Ratchet had work he could be doing. 

He had been doing work—important work, attempting to make the groundbridge more energy-efficient without reducing its range—when he had felt someone come up behind him and put a hand on his arm. Ratchet immediately recited: “Unless someone’s on fire and Miko caused it, you don’t need to bother me.” (No one was quite sure whether he had actually made that an automatic response in his systems, and Ratchet wasn’t about to tell them).

“Nothing is on fire at the moment, old friend.” 

Not many things in this universe could jolt Ratchet out of his intense focus, but the deep baritone behind him was one of them. He started to turn, an apology on his lips, when Optimus slid the hand from his arm up to his jaw, cradling Ratchet’s face with enough bold-faced affection to make the medic blush. 

Ratchet glanced over to where the children and their guardians were engrossed in a movie. “Optimus-“ he hissed, “right here?” He did not move to take Optimus’s hand away. 

Optimus only gave him that same piercing stare he always wore. “I would like to discuss something with you.” After a moment, he drew away and started walking towards the elevator. Ratchet hesitated, looking back to his work for the briefest moment — and then sighed and turned to meet Optimus’s expectant gaze. 

As the two of them boarded the freight elevator and it started trundling upwards, Ratchet grumbled, “I better not come back to see the kids trying to ‘play games’ on my computer.” He crossed his arms, muttering, “ _ ‘Mine-craft,’ _ hmph. Why do they need Cybertronian tech to give a block game pretty textures? It’s not my fault human computers are so weak.”

The elevator creaked to a halt as it emerged from the top of the Mesa, bringing them out into the open air. 

“Perhaps humans are not up to our standards of technology, Ratchet,” Optimus intoned as he gently took his hand, “but they possess many talents we could learn from, if we try.” 

Ratchet had heard some version of this speech a hundred times, but carefully held back his exasperated sigh. Every single time he complained about this planet’s annoying nature, or primitive machinery, or inept species, Optimus just couldn’t keep himself from trying to turn it around on him. There was always something secretly wonderful about Earth that Ratchet just  _ failed _ to see. Sometimes it made Ratchet so irritated he wanted to shake Optimus violently by the shoulders, but that impulse was always tempered by the fact that he couldn’t reach them.

So he just hummed noncommittally, letting himself be led out to the edge of the Mesa. “What exactly did you want to talk about, anyways?”

Optimus sat down, legs dangling off the side of the cliff. “Sit with me, old friend.” 

Ratchet’s spark always jumped a little bit to see Optimus so close to such a long drop, but he swallowed down that nervous flutter and settled next to him on the dry rock.

Optimus was staring up and outwards, into the night sky. For a second, Ratchet felt a selfish want for Optimus to turn and look at  _ him _ before shaking it away. Out in the desert, far off from the lights of Jasper, the stars unfurled in a brilliant arc across their field of vision. Like this, being able to see the horizon as it stretched all around them, the sky felt almost intimately close. As Ratchet looked up, he found Cybertron – high enough he had to lean back, small and strangely orange through the filter of the atmosphere.

Quietly, he took Optimus’s hand where it lay between them. 

“I think I have found Virvulpe Minor.” Optimus pointed to a space left of Cybertron, to a cluster of greenish stars. 

Ratchet squinted. “Are you sure? Doesn’t look like much of anything to me.”   
  
Optimus seemed to contemplate this for a minute, and then sighed in that way of his that made it sound like he’d come to a heavy conclusion. “I suppose our change of viewpoint has rendered it a different shape – it looks more akin to Wheeljack and Bulkhead after too many cubes of engex.”

Ratchet barked out a startled laugh. Primus, he could see it too! The way the stars grouped together on the left side all lopsided? His own mirth caught him off guard, and as he tried to calm himself down, he turned to see Optimus watching him with warmth in his gaze. Ratchet felt his face heat.

Suddenly, a light streaked across their vision. It appeared for no longer than a second, in its dark, meager part of the sky—but both Ratchet and Optimus caught it. 

Broken from his reverie, Ratchet cleared his throat. “Unusual. There weren’t any meteor showers predicted for tonight, as far as I know.” 

“Hm.” Optimus was watching the sky again. “There is... a tradition I have heard from the humans.” 

Ratchet consciously tried not to roll his optics, feeling the heaviness of the moment drain out of him at hearing Optimus bring up humans yet again. 

“They have a fixation on witnessing meteors burn up in their atmosphere—they call them ‘shooting stars.’”

Ratchet scoffed. “Ridiculous. If stars could move like that their species would be extinct.” 

“I know.” 

Ratchet – who hadn’t been ‘tuning out’ Optimus, per se, but internally waiting for this pseudo-arguing they did to be done – glanced at him in surprise. 

His face was the same neutral expression it always was, but- ...Optimus rarely smiled, and  _ never _ cried, never, but as Ratchet saw his optics flicker, just slightly, it felt like somehow, he was doing both. His hand squeezed Ratchet’s as the medic blinked at him. “I know. But at first glance, doesn’t it look like that? Does it not it seem like something impossible has happened, and you were graciously given the chance to have witnessed it?” 

Ratchet... didn’t have an answer for that. 

“I know it is only a meteor falling to earth. The humans know that as well, and yet that is what they call them. Rocks burning away into nothing before they are even able to touch the ground.”

Ratchet felt like his chest was full of lead. Optimus’s voice was the same as it had always been and yet-

“They make wishes on them.”

Ratchet could think of many kinds of skeptical remarks he could make about that. He did not. Optimus’s optics were still fixed outwards, far up in the sky, right around the dimly glowing orange pinpoint that may or may not have been their home. He wasn’t completely sure anymore.

Ratchet ached.

“...what would you wish for?” 

Ratchet covered his mouth with his hand. Optimus hadn’t said that – not out loud, but he could feel it there, pointed at his spark. Optimus took his chin, turned his face to meet him directly. He wouldn’t let Ratchet hide, and Ratchet hated and loved him for it. 

“Ratchet?” 

He couldn’t. Ratchet opened his mouth, thought of nothing, and kissed him.

Optimus received it with grace. (His optics watched Ratchet, half-lidded, and closed). They pressed together, holding each other as best they could on a planet that wasn’t quite theirs. The stars shifted, and they parted but didn’t separate. Ratchet leaned into Optimus’s side, trying to think of nothing but the warmth of his frame and the low rumble of his engine, and shook his head minutely. 

Optimus heard. “I understand, old friend.”

And that was the core of it, wasn’t it? They were both so old, pushing on for just a few more hours of work before they could finally rest. Even now, Ratchet could hear the machinery inside Optimus’s chest grinding in that way that always worried him. Even now, Optimus noticed the dullness of Ratchet’s optics showing he hadn’t eaten in a while. Both would worry about the other, push them to be more careful with their frame and sleep in more, and both knew that. It wasn’t what they wanted – Primus knew it wasn’t – but it was enough. 

Holding each other as the stars turned on, their family safe far below them, and the night soft and quiet and mercifully still, was enough. 


End file.
